By Svara Jayasinghe
We arrived at the Bandaranaike International airport near Colombo, Sri Lanka, at 4:00 A.M. We got off the plane, and met our mom’s cousin (our uncle, sort of) who holds a high position in the police force. They were our “escorts” which meant we would get to skip the lines. After we had met, we headed onto security. Security checked our passports and visa’s but stumbled upon a mistake. They had gotten my birth date wrong. The police escorted my dad to immigration to get the problem fixed.
Our next stop was getting our check-in luggage. We went downstairs and waited near the conveyor belt for our luggage. Once we had collected our suitcases, we went over to a money exchange store and exchanged some of our U.S. dollars into Sri Lankan rupees. We were almost out of the airport, when we had to meet two more of our mom’s cousins. We all had a quick greeting, then went outside. There was a police jeep and a car that would be taking us to our hotel. We loaded our things into the jeep, then got inside the car. It was about a half hour drive to the hotel, and we got to experience Sri Lankan driving.
At first, on the road leaving the airport, the driving was what we were used to. However, as soon as we got off of the highway, we were exposed to the terror of driving in Sri Lanka. Cars didn’t stay inside the lanes, they just drove anywhere they wanted to! Sometimes they even went over the lane with one half of the car in one lane, and the other half in another lane! It was crazy! People honked and went between cars with only one inch between each other. But the mind blowing thing was that we didn’t see any car crashes! All that people are focused about is getting to the place they need to go and not crashing. It works out in its own way.
When we arrived at our hotel, which was the Cinnamon Grand, we got out of the car and unloaded our luggage. We said goodbye and went inside the hotel to check-in. The lobby was amazing! It was very beautiful and modern. Once we had checked in, one of the employees showed us to our room. We got into the elevator, and went up to level 5. On the way, an employee told us what level breakfast was on and that breakfast was from 6:00 A.M.-10:00 A.M. When we got to our room, we quickly explored it and found out that it was amazing! We had two adjoining rooms, one for our parents, and one for us. In our parent’s room, there was one king bed, and in our room there were two queen beds, one for Kiran and one for Simran. I would be sleeping on a rollaway bed, which I was fine with. We were all so tired, that we couldn’t keep our eyes open any longer. We slept for a few hours and then woke up at around 7:00 A.M. Since we had been on a plane for 7 hours from Seoul, South Korea, and since then we hadn’t taken a shower, we decided to freshen up a little bit. We brushed our teeth, took a shower, and brushed our hair. After that, we lounged a little more, then got ready to go to breakfast.
We arrived at breakfast and told a staff member our room number so they could put our bill on our room. We then took a long look at the breakfast buffet. The food line stretched from one side of the room to almost the other side of the room, and boy, was that room big! We grabbed plates and served ourselves food. I ate the usual: scrambled eggs, sausage, and baked beans. I sat down at our table and my dad reminded me that since we were in Sri Lanka, we had to eat some Sri Lankan food. I then served myself some egg hoppers, string hoppers, and a Sri Lankan candy called juggery.
After we were done eating our delicious breakfast, we went back upstairs to our room and rested for another half an hour. When we were done resting we got ready to visit a couple of relatives houses. Our first stop was our grandma’s younger sister on our mom’s side, (our mom’s aunt). We stopped there for about half an hour and talked. When it was time to head off to the next house, we got into the van and drove off. Our next stop was our grandma’s younger sister on our dad’s side, (our dad’s aunt). At their house we met our dad’s aunt and uncle, our dad’s cousin, and our dad’s cousins son, (our second cousin on our dad’s side). We ended up staying there about forty to fifty minutes and in that time we gave presents, talked, and played with our second cousin, (Vihas). When it was time to go, we took our dad’s aunt’s family with us, to our next stop, which, was our grandparents house on our dad’s side. When we had all somehow managed to fit in the van, we drove off towards our next destination.
When we got to our grandparents house, we all piled out of the car and greeted our grandpa and said “hi” to our grandma, who has Alzheimer’s disease. We sat and talked and ended up staying for lunch. After some time had passed, my dad’s aunt’s family left. We hung around for a little longer, talking. When it was time to go we got back into the van and drove back to the hotel, where we rested for another hour. After we were done resting, we freshened up for a little bit, then headed down to the lobby where we met our mom’s cousins (the same ones that we had met earlier at the airport). They had brought Akenya, who is another one of our second cousins except on our mom’s side. We sat down, got drinks, and talked. It would have been a fun time if we hadn’t been so tired. Since we were exhausted from the plane ride, it would take a long time to get fully rested, and we accidentally started falling asleep in our chairs!
After about forty minutes, my mom’s cousins left and we went to dinner with our grandparents, to a restaurant called Chutney’s, located inside of the Cinnamon Grand Hotel. By then the three of us were so exhausted that we couldn’t keep our eyes open any longer and started falling asleep in our chairs for a long period of time. After some time, my dad took us back upstairs to our room so that we could sleep. He went back downstairs to finish dinner with our grandfather, and we slept peacefully. We got in bed, and we were all asleep as soon as the lights went off.
To see the previous day of our trip, click here.
To see the next day of our trip, click here.